Saturday, December 18, 2010

Yes, a fun commercial can be very persuasive to children. But is it enough to legitimize the lawsuit against McDonalds? Most definitely not.

Happy Meals could be considered an equivalent to pure trash (cocaine for kids) and lacking in any nutritional value, but let’s take a look at how children are introduced to McDonalds and who is actually spending the cash on the trash.

Even then, McDonalds has taken major strides to improve on the “Crappy Meal”. Milk is an option to replace soda and apples are easily substituted for French fries.

Furthermore, a seven-year-old doesn’t have a driver’s license, nor are their sprightly legs able to reach the gas pedal. A visit every once in a while won’t turn your toddler into a lard bucket, but we all know that frequenting fast food joints will most definitely do the job.

Parents of the obese children make the choice to frequent McDonalds. Therefore, they are the ones to blame – the ones ‘too busy’ to cook their kids a healthy meal. A parent can try to put the blame on fast food companies, like McDonald’s, but it's common knowledge that fast food products represent health food's opposition. Where would Jamie Oliver be without poor parenting and fast food?

Moderation, education, and healthy eating habits are what need to be taught. If a parent is too lazy to cook their child a decent meal, they shouldn’t blame the product they’re serving. McDonalds NEVER advertised the “Happy Meal” as a “healthy meal”. Moreover, McDonalds DOES offer healthy substitutions.

To simplify:

- As a parent of a child under 16: If your child consumes fast food, like McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Jack in The Box, or any other nastiness, it’s YOUR responsibility to moderate their intake. None of these fast food restaurants promise a balanced diet. Your kid eats what you choose to feed them.

- As a parent of a child under 16: Ensuring regular exercise and an active lifestyle for your child is your responsibility. If you can’t do that, maybe your parenting skills should be revisited.

- As a parent of a child under 16: You are responsible for your child’s wellness. What they eat, how they exercise… If you have an obese child, stop feeding them junk food. Instead of feeding your child crap and sitting them in front of the teli to play video games all day, make them a salad and take them on fun outings, like hiking, biking, nature walks, swimming, and pretty much ANYTHING that gets their blood flowing. Do this and you won’t have a fat kid.

In other words: A Child’s obesity is on the parent and what they feed them. If they choose to feed their child a Happy Meal, then a fat child is what they have. A child is a reflection of their parent.

6 comments:

I just went to the McDonald's web site to see what the calorie content of a Happy Meal is. All I got was big blocks of text that talked about how wonderful McDonald's food is, and how concerned they are about my children, bla bla bla. I finally found a set of pdfs to download...the calorie content of the kids' meals is appalling. They come up hard against the limit for what I would consider an adult lunch, even when you opt for the apples rather than the fries, and the apples come with a caramel sauce that almost completely negates their value. It's hard to believe, but the deep-fried chicken actually has the best calorie count.

Sure, parents are responsible for buying the food, but McDonald's is responsible for the menu.

McDonald's may have happy meals with excessive calorie counts, but it's not a crime just because it ends up as problematic. Thought exercise: Imagine youth starvation plagued the USA. Daily news stories report deaths from malnutrition. Is McDonald's still liable for damage due to it's high caloric meals marketed for children. No, quite the opposite. They may be praised for being able to provide such an energy dense food. Thus, it is not the act of providing a high caloric meal with entertaining toys, but rather the mis-use of said product. If only people who need the calories ate happy meals then this would not be a problem.

It could thus be argued that since McDonald's marketed to the entire child population rather than just the subset who actually need their service (high calorie food) then they are liable. (They intended children who don't need food to buy their food) The ramifications of this, if true, would demolish the advertising industry, which is all about creating demand where it does not exist.

I absolutely agree that parents are responsible if their kids are little blimpos. Kids who often eat fast food instead of home cooked meals are on the road to obesity. I am grateful that my parents didn't overfeed us and steered us away from non-nutritious food:

Mcdonalds is selling a 100% legal product. Its bad for you, but its not a secret. Not even close. They are marketing to whoever they want in order to profit themselves as a business!!! This is not ciggarettes giving you cancer people, its greasy food making you fat. Step up and take a look in the mirror and take responsibility.

And for any parents saying they appease their kids when they incessantly whine for mcdonalds.... yes well they also whine for xbox, ps3, wiis, ipods, laptops, toys, games, candy and everything else on tv. Its your job to guide them to make the right choices and understand their actions.

As a parent of 3 grown children i have to say that i am sick and tired of all the "food police" If i want to bring my kids to a fast food restaurant once in a while thats my choice and not that of the government or even worse some over inquisitive person with to much time on their hands. Leave parents to raise children the way we have for thousands of years and stop trying to make this a police state.

This article is so privileged it's not even funny.It's great that you have the means and time and access to take your kids hiking and swimming. Not everyone does, and it does not reflect on their ability to be good parents. Because while you're taking your kids on all these activities, they're using that time to work just to keep a roof over their kids heads and any kind of food at all on the table.